Totò

Acting

Totò

Born 1898-02-14 · Naples, Campania, Italy

Totò was born Antonio Clemente in a poor district of Naples, the illegitimate son of Anna Clemente from Sicily and Marquis Giuseppe De Curtis from Naples. Nicknamed “il principe della risata’ (the prince of laughter), he was an Italian comedian, film and theatre actor, writer, singer and songwriter, and widely considered one of the greatest Italian artists of the 20th century.  While he first gained his popularity as a comic actor, his dramatic roles, poetry, and songs are all of cultural import; his style and a number of his recurring jokes and gestures have become universally known memes in Italy. As a comic actor, Totò is classified as an heir of the Commedia dell'Arte tradition, and has been compared to such figures as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin.  At the age of 15, he was already acting as a comedian in small theatres, under the pseudonym "Clerment". His early repertoire mostly consisted in imitations of Gustavo De Marco's characters. He served in the army during World War I and then went back to acting to develop the trademarks of his style.    In 1937, he appeared in his first movie "Fermo con le mani", and later starred in 96 more films, many of which are still frequently broadcast on Italian television. In his vast cinematographic career, Totò had the opportunity to act side by side with virtually all major Italian actors of the time. Totò's unmistakable figure, with his peculiarly irregular face (due to an accident in his teen years), and his unique trademark ability to disarticulate his body like a marionette, soon became very popular and his comic gags became part of the Italian culture. Totò died at the age of 69 in Rome after a series of heart attacks. Due to overwhelming popularity there were three funeral services: the first in Rome, and the second and third in Naples. Totò's birth home has been recently opened to the public as a museum.

Acting credits

Toto, Fabrizi and the Young People Today poster
7.2

A boy and a girl fall in love but their fathers take a strong dislike to each other, clashing repeatedly during the preparations for the upcoming marriage.

Toto, Fabrizi and the Young People Today

1960

Cops and Robbers poster
7.5

Esposito is a thief who cons tourists in Rome. Officer Bottoni manages to catch him and starts persecuting him. When Esposito manages to flee, Bottoni's superiors inform him that he'll lose his job if he can't catch Esposito.

Cops and Robbers

1951

Totòtruffa '62 poster
7.6

Antonio, a former variety actor, keeps his daughter in an excellent boarding school by organizing small scams with his friend and colleague Felice. Commissioner Malvasia good-naturedly persecuted him. When their respective unsuspecting children fall in love, the two fathers make peace.

Totòtruffa '62

1961

Big Deal on Madonna Street poster
8.1

Best friends Peppe and Mario are thieves, but they're not very good at it. Still, Peppe thinks that he's finally devised a master heist that will make them rich. With the help of some fellow criminals, he plans to dig a tunnel from a rented apartment to the pawnshop next door, where they can rob the safe. But his plan is far from foolproof, and the fact that no one in the group has any experience digging tunnels proves to be the least of their problems.

Big Deal on Madonna Street

1958

The Witches poster
6.0

Five short stories loosely dealing with the roles of women in society. A superstar actress travels to a mountain resort, only to evoke jealousy from women and lust from men. A woman offers to take an injured man to the hospital. A widowed father and his son seek for a new wife/mother. A man seeks revenge for a woman's honor. A bored housewife tries to explain to her husband that he's not as romantic as he used to be.

The Witches

1967

We Are Cinema poster
9.5

An Italian documentary about Italian cinema.

We Are Cinema

2021

Toto and Marcellino poster
6.4

Marcellino becomes an orphan and finds two uncles--a good old eccentric man and a villain.

Toto and Marcellino

1958

The Gold of Naples poster
7.3

A tribute to Naples, this film presents six episodes: a clown exploited by a gangster, a pizza seller losing her husband’s ring, a child's funeral, a gambler beaten by a kid, a prostitute's unusual wedding, and a "wisdom seller" offering advice.

The Gold of Naples

1954

Tutto Totò - La scommessa poster
5.7

No synopsis available yet.

Tutto Totò - La scommessa

1967

Il coraggio poster
6.6

A wealthy trader saves the life of a poor suicidal man who then decides that his savior has the responsibility of taking care of him and his family.

Il coraggio

1955

Toto the Sheik poster
6.8

Antonio is the humble servant of a rich family governed by the Marquis Gastone. He is a young man madly in love with Lulu, but she betrays him, and he desperately enlist in the foreign legion.

Toto the Sheik

1950

Roman Tales poster
6.2

Alvaro is been in jail and so he consider himself the most fit to lead his three friends Mario, Otello and Spartaco. The four young men decide to start a business. They need only a van to start a transport company. But they lack the money. How can they get it?

Roman Tales

1955

Forza Italia! poster
8.0

Much-censored documentary encompassing thirty years of Italian politics under the governance of the Christian Democracy (DC), entirely composed of — occasionally dubbed — archival footage.

Forza Italia!

1977

Slave Girl poster
7.5

Tongue-in-cheek adventure tale of an American attempting to free sailors held as hostages and becoming involved in middle-East tribal wars.

Slave Girl

1947

Sua Eccellenza si fermò a mangiare poster
6.7

A petty thief pretends he is Mussolini's personal physician, wins the confidence of a family, and succeeds in stealing their gold cutlery.

Sua Eccellenza si fermò a mangiare

1961

Totò, Vittorio and the Doctor poster
5.4

The fake private detective Mike Spillone is hired by two old ladies to find out if Brigitte, the wife of their nephew Otello Bellomo, has a lover. Brigitte is a physician but the two aunts are unaware of the fact. While investigating, Mike and his assistant Johnny discover Brigitte with a prospective patient, the marquis De Vitti who was shot by the husband of the woman he tried to seduce. Afterwards Spillone finds her with her husband who he believes to be her lover.

Totò, Vittorio and the Doctor

1957

Tutto Totò - Totò Ciak poster
5.9

Toto participates in various samples in a study of cinema, first going in a studio where there's shooting a spy movie, then in a western scenario, where he has to play a cruel and uncouth bandit who must challenge him to a duel a cowboy.

Tutto Totò - Totò Ciak

1967

The Law Is the Law poster
7.2

Assola is an imaginary village on the border between Italy and France and the borderline crosses the village itself. The French customs agent Ferdinand is always trying to catch the Italian smuggler Giuseppe. Giuseppe discovers that Ferdinand was actually born in Italy and therefore he can't be a French customs agent.

The Law Is the Law

1958

Totò, Peppino e le fanatiche poster
6.6

A psychiatric-clinic medical director runs some tests on two patients, the Ragionier Antonio Vignanelli and Cavalier Peppino Caprioli, so they must retrieve some memories of family life in order to understand their mental illness.

Totò, Peppino e le fanatiche

1958

Tutto Totò - Totò a Napoli poster
5.5

No synopsis available yet.

Tutto Totò - Totò a Napoli

1967

The Treasure of San Gennaro poster
7.4

A pair of Americans want to perform the greatest robbery: the treasure of San Gennaro, in Napoli.

The Treasure of San Gennaro

1966

The Overtaxed poster
7.1

Mr. Pezzella owns and operates a well-established luxury-clothing store. He does not like and does not consider it right to pay taxes and therefore uses a tax consultant to be able to evade more taxes.

The Overtaxed

1959

Tutto Totò - Il tuttofare poster
6.1

No synopsis available yet.

Tutto Totò - Il tuttofare

1967

The Passionate Thief poster
6.9

On New Year's Eve, a young woman and an out-of-work actor complicate a pickpocket's plans to ply his trade.

The Passionate Thief

1960

Behind the camera